Thackeray, at a rally at Aurangabad, announced the Sena will start an agitation — ‘Mee Karjamukta Honaar’ (I will become loan free) for distressed farmers.

“The state government should not test the patience of farmers. If the farmers are finished, then we all will meet the same fate,” said Uddhav, while launching his campaign ‘Shiv Sampark Abhiyan’. As part of the campaign, the Sena will coordinate with farmers to secure relief for them and ensure remunerative prices for their products.

Many have described this as a sort of preparation for mid-term polls. Sena wants to project Thackeray as a messiah of the farmers.

Thackeray has instructed his Sena workers to fan out across the rural heartland and attract farmers into the Sena fold.

This is in addition to the ‘Sangharsh Yatra’ (struggle march) started by the Opposition parties in support of a farm loan waiver. They have also demanded a special session of the state legislature to discuss farmers’ issues in detail.

The Sena is angry because the BJP has been running the government without taking it into confidence and attempts are being made in every way to cut the Sena to size.

The whole budget session of the state government was marked by protests by the opposition Congress-NCP combine on the issue of the failure of the state government to announce a loan waiver. Although the Sena initially supported the opposition, it backtracked after Sena ministers accompanied chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to meet Union finance minister Arun Jaitley to demand help for a loan waiver.

Apart from this, the Sena has also criticised the manner in which the BJP-led government is carrying out ‘Change of User’ where it is converting industrial land to housing. While the BJP attributes it to an attempt to create affordable houses, the Sena calls it a conspiracy to drive out Maharashtrians from Mumbai.

According to the weekly column penned by Sena MP Sanjay Raut in Saamana, party mouthpiece, he said a conspiracy to drive our Maharashtrians, which has been hatched from Delhi is still continuing. “If Maharashtrians do not get jobs in Mumbai, they will be forced to migrate outside and this is being done to ensure this,” said Raut. He said while the Congress-led government was cautious on this front, the BJP was going all out to ensure this migration.